CFB · Playoff Odds
Who makes the 12-team playoff
We play out the rest of the season 10,000 times with the same team ratings that set the WeatherQB Line: every remaining game, then the conference title games, then a selection committee rebuilt from how the real one has ranked teams since 2014. A team's chance is the share of those seasons it makes the field. Refreshed every morning.
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Run from Sept 22 of every season, 2014–25, with a committee model that had never seen that season: teams given 25–50% finished in the committee's top 12 35.7% of the time, and teams given 75% or more 90%. The full table is below.
At season's end the committee model names 11 of the real top 12 in an average year. It picks the 2024 field 12 for 12; for 2025 it takes Notre Dame and BYU where the committee took Oklahoma and Alabama.
These are odds, not picks. Early in the season most contenders are still close to coin flips, and a single upset moves them.
The likeliest field today
The twelve teams with the best chances, placed the way they would get in. Shaded cards are the four likeliest to earn a first-round bye.
Climbing and falling
Change in playoff odds over the last week, with the game that moved them.
Every team's chances
Sorted by playoff chance; tap a column to re-sort. The dashed line falls after the twelfth team. Projected records include a conference title game.
| Team |
|---|
The Group of 6 bid
One spot goes to the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, the MAC, the Mountain West, the Pac-12 or the Sun Belt. It does not have to be a champion.
How the 2026 field is picked
- The SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC champions are in, whatever their ranking.
- The highest-ranked Group of 6 team is in.
- Notre Dame is in if it is ranked in the top 12.
- The highest-ranked remaining teams fill the field to 12.
- The four highest-ranked teams get byes, champions or not.
Where we approximate: title-game spots go to the top two by conference record, with rating as the tiebreaker rather than each league's own rules; the Sun Belt is read as one table rather than two divisions; every conference is assumed to play a title game. Once a real title game is set, its two teams are used. Group of 6 teams run about three points high in our ratings against Power 4 opposition, so their chances here are slightly generous.
Checked against 12 seasons
Each season 2014–25 run from Sept 22, scored against the committee's final top 12 (the 12-team field only exists from 2024).
| We said | Teams | It happened |
|---|---|---|
| Under 2% | 879 | 0.2% |
| 2–10% | 277 | 6.5% |
| 10–25% | 220 | 12.7% |
| 25–50% | 115 | 35.7% |
| 50–75% | 55 | 69.1% |
| 75% and up | 19 | 89.5% |